1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a faucet member, and more particularly to a process for fabricating an integral plastic faucet member and a finished product thereof.
2. Related Art
A conventional faucet component generally includes a faucet member, especially a faucet member with two water inlets. Such a faucet member is approximately H-shaped and has a left valve seat part, a right valve seat part, a connecting part between the valve seat parts, and support leg parts extending from bottom ends of the valve seat parts. The bottom end of each valve seat part has a water inlet. The water inlets may be respectively in communication with the valve seat parts above via an internal flow passage. A valve body may be mounted on each valve seat part and each of the valve bodies may be controlled by rotating a corresponding handle. In addition, the connecting part between the valve seat parts has an internal flow passage. Generally, at least one water outlet is disposed on the internal flow passage. The water outlet may be connected to various water-outlet members such as a water-outlet pipe of a tap and a showerhead. Here, the tap may be directly mounted and secured on a wash sink through external threads on the two support leg parts of the faucet member and threaded fasteners, and then the tap is covered by a suitable external housing. In use, by properly switching the handles to actuate the corresponding valve bodies, water sources such as cold and hot water from the water inlets can be controlled to flow to the water outlet at the connecting part via the valve bodies, pass through the water outlet or various water-outlet members connected thereto, and then flow or be sprayed out in a predetermined water-outlet pattern.
It should be particularly noted that about two methods are used for fabricating the above faucet member currently. The first method is to directly use a copper casting process, which includes the following steps. A sand core and a sand mold are fabricated. An approximate prototype is finished by casting molten copper and removing the sand core. Afterward, subsequent machining processes such as threading, drilling, and milling are performed to obtain the desired faucet member. Therefore, the whole process is complicated and time-consuming, resulting in an excessively long processing time, a low efficiency, and a low product yield. In addition, the fast wearing of cutting tools required by machining also increase the production and fabrication costs. Meanwhile, if the cutting tools are not properly maintained or replaced, the precision of finished size may also be affected, resulting in degradation of the product quality. Moreover, the copper used in copper casting is expensive, and also has a high specific weight, which correspondingly increases the whole transportation cost. Thus, such a process is not cost effective.
In the second method, two side members formed by valve seat parts and support leg parts on two sides of the faucet member as well as a hollow strip-shaped member at the middle connecting part are respectively fabricated by plastic injection molding. Then, two ends of the hollow strip-shaped member are respectively adhered to corresponding positions reserved on the side members by a binder, so as to form the faucet member. Such a process can overcome the mold-release problem that cannot be solved in molding a flow passage of the middle connecting part in the integral plastic injection. However, such a process has its own disadvantages. After the members are injection molded, they must be adhered manually, so that the labor cost of assembly is high and the production efficiency is limited and cannot be improved. Meanwhile, for the manual assembly operation, the assembly quality cannot be effectively guaranteed, since the craft and skill level vary with different operators. In addition, since the members are adhered to each other with the binder, the bonding strength is low. Furthermore, since properties of the binder are prone to change, the adhered parts cannot be combined tightly, which may also affect the quality and service life of the product. Therefore, the conventional methods for fabricating the faucet member have many defects, and need further improvement and innovation.